WITCH-HATS OFF TO THE OCC HIGHWAYS DEPARTMENTCOULD IT BE THE BEGINNING OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP?

THE ROAD WITCH TRIAL is delighted to announce the following (excerpted from the letter sent to residents near Moreton Road)

The public consultation on our proposal to make Moreton Road one-way (from east to west) ended on Friday 11 November. In total 100 responses were received (from a total of 382 letters sent out) of which 94 objected to the proposal. The main concern was that the traffic diverted away from Moreton Road would have too great an impact on the neighbouring roads.

Whilst the Council feels that there are benefits from implementing such a proposal and there is not a feasible alternative we do accept that the implications of this change are too significant for residents in the area to accept given the current level of traffic.

Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) has dropped its proposal to make Moreton Road (B4495) one-way as a result of local response opposed to the proposal by local residents whose streets stood to absorb a very large increase in motor traffic.

This decision reveals a laudable sensitivity on the part of the OCC Highways Department to the needs of residents to preserve the integrity of their streets as living spaces. Although this may seem like small beer to those who dont live on or near Beech Croft Road and adjacent streets, This is a big moment in the development of Oxfordshire road engineering philosophy.

The Road-Witch Trial would like to thank the OCC's Highways Department, especially Enginner Richard Ponchaud, for making a difficult decision and putting people before facilitating traffic flow. When a lot of work has been done by a government department, it is very difficult to chuck it out in one stroke, and ROAD WITCH recognises this as nothing short of courageous.

ROAD WITCH is hoping to build on this tremendous opportunity to work with the OCC Highway Engineers to solve the problem with the problematic intersection. Locals who use the intersection in many different capacities and at different times of day have a deep understanding of the complex interchange, and may be useful in coming up with a creative, effective, and ground-breaking solution to the problems caused by this junction. We hope to help make the OCC Highways Engineers look good, pull a rabbit out of a hat and give them full credit when a solution is arrived at; one which reveals a deeper understanding of the psychology of road use, and one that helps keep motorised traffic moving while improving pedestrian amenity.

To this end, we will be imploring the OCC to model the motor/pedestrian/traffic flow with a re-designed signal sequence and placement. Alas, the software the OCC uses is well out of date with modern road-use philosophy, and takes no account of pedestrian and cyclist behaviour! So this will take some work. There are some beautiful new solutions to this sort of problem that have precedents in Scandinavia and The Netherlands, as well as some revolutionary research in the UK and in Australia to draw upon.

The OCC Highways Department's decision has created unusual goodwill between citizen and civil servant, and ROAD WITCH hopes to make the most of it.